Who Expected THAT?

The mighty Penn State Nittany Lions (3-0, 1-0 Big Ten) spoiled the Big Ten debut of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (2-1, 0-1 Big Ten) — barely, by a score of 13-10 — before a record crowd of 53,774 in Piscataway.

It wasn’t the game any of our expert predictors predicted. Nay, far from it. And we weren’t alone in our ineptitude. Most of the media wonks got it wrong, too. Were it not for a desperate 80-yard drive deep into the fourth quarter, the outcome would have gone the other way, and by all rights, it should have.

Miss Teen South Carolina gave a better answer back in 2007 than our distinguished panel did this week. I forget the question.

Penn State played with thumbs up their asses most of the game, not to take any credit from Rutgers, who played an inspired, albeit way far from perfect, game. In particular, vaunted born-again quarterback Gary Nova, who I thought at game’s outset was potential NFL material, got flushed down the toilet, a smack-down that will reverberate through his mind each time he steps up and fondles his center’s nuts from now on. Gary will be intercepted dozens more times before this season ends.

Listen, people, stop this BTPR crap, already! I’ll leave that to juvenile publications like BSD and assorted bigmouths on the teams. Bill Belton, get some damn class, already! Don’t lower yourself to the level of the trash-talking Scarlet O’Haras. Here, we keep things super serious and loftily literary, like talking about thumbs up asses and the Rutgers center’s nuts.

There was only one screwy trick play, a pseudo-playground flea-flicker that failed to become erect. Penn State offensive coordinator John Donovan needs to address this situation with his urologist. Better yet his proctologist, as he seemed to have pulled that one straight out of his ass.

This turkey pores through stats, but in preparing for this game, I missed one glaringly obvious one, now painfully visible in retrospect: Rutgers has led the nation in blocking kicks since 2009! I would have looked like a genius if I had predicted a blocked field goal and a blocked punt!Sam Ficken didn’t have an altogether horrible night, though. Without his two second-half field goals, the game would have belonged to the Scarlet Knights.

And another thing. Big shout-out to the mediocre Penn State secondary and especially former wide receiver Trevor Williams as they intercepted Gary Nova five f*cking times, with Williams snagging two himself. (The others were by Ryan Keiser, Adrian Amos, and Brandon Bell).Who would have predicted that?!?! Some bunch of Carnacs we are! And for God’s sake, why didn’t we predict that the opponents would give PSU the ball five times and PSU would almost lose?? Come on, predictors! Get your acts together, damnit!

I’m awarding Predictor of the Week honors to Mr. No One this week. No One got it right. Not even close.

The Nittany Lion run defense also did a decent job of containing Paul James and Desmon Peoples, limiting Rutgers to 102 yards rushing.

Once again, the running game suuuuuuuuuuucked. Against the Worst Defense in the Big Ten (TWDITBT), it couldn’t get umgetracked. Bill Belton had 36 yards on 14 carries, and the other leading rusher was Christian Hackenberg, who was seen running for his life on several occasions. He had 18.

Yeah, the offensive line sucked at both run blocking and pass protection this time. They aren’t showing the improvement some of you predicted. If I did one of those inane, trite, hackneyed, ridiculous report cards you see everywhere and wish would go away, they’d get an F-.

At 11:33 PM, I received a text message from Toejam, saying “Never a doubt!” You know, for some damn reason, I had the feeling that they would come through in the end, too. They found a way, even though the officials tried to take it away with that holding call. They believed in themselves, and they pulled it off.

A Bill Belton touchdown run — yeah, I said run — provided the winning difference with a minute and a half left in the game. So, a tired running back and a tired offensive line could hang in there and play inspired football for the win. That tells me a lot about this team. They found a way to come from behind and win against UCF and they found a way to do the same against Rutgers. We don’t really need the heart attacks, but it makes for exciting football at the point in the game when The Cave denizens are suffering from uninspired football ennui.

Mundane stats follow, and by this time you’ve already seen them elsewhere, so keep reading just in case I through a joke in somewhere.

Hackenberg threw 44 times and completed 25, for a crappy quarterback rating of 26.9, but that topped Gary Nova’s QBR, which was 22.5, thanks to the 5 INTs. Neither QB threw for a TD (unless you count the one the officials took away from Hackenberg by calling that obvious hold). The receiving corps for Penn State featured Geno Lewis, with six receptions for 109 yards, including a couple of good ones on that game-winning drive. DeSean Hamilton had eight for 104. Jesse James had an off night with one reception for three yards, but had the aforementioned TD reception that got called back. And although Bill Belton didn’t do much as a rusher (aside from scoring the game winner), he had four catches for 52 yards as a receiver.

We also saw the debut of Christian Hackenberg as a punter. ‘Nuff said there. Oy!

I won’t soon forget this game, which is the purpose writing this drivel serves. Given the quantities of C2H5OH I typically consume at The Cave’s gatherings, I need such reinforcement lest the ethanol dismantle the brain cells of my football memory banks such that the details are forever lost.

What I need to see in the future is a running game, pure and simple. This is crucial for wins in the conference. If I don’t see a balanced attack in the forthcoming game against the Minutemen (minute as in tiny, not as in the unit of time), I’ll have a very pessimistic outlook for the Big Ten season. But then, when didn’t I?

Screwups around the Conference

Yet another crappy week for the Big Fourteen. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Indiana got bowled over by BGSU, 45-42; Minnesooda hornily failed to gig the TCU Frogs, 30-7; the non-fighting Illiniweks were carried away by a sled team of Huskies, 44-19; the Mountaineers won the border war with the Turtles, 40-37; the Hawkeys got swept up by the Cyclones, 20-17; and Notre Dame came back to boil the ‘Makers 30-14. Winners in the conference aside from YOUR NITTANY LIONS were tOSU, shutting out Kent State 66-0; Big Blue, shooting down the 0-3 RedHawks, 34-10; and the Cornhuskers, who bullied the 0-3 Fresno State Bulldogs big time, 55-19.

By the way, looking at games played by other PSU opponents, Mizzou clobbered UCF 38-10 and Vandy edged UMass 34-31. Worthy of note as well was East Carolina’s win over Virginia Tech, BC beating USC, and it took the hapless Gators three overtimes to defeat perennial SEC whipping boy Kentucky.

Next week, the opportunities for screwups continue, as Purdue faces the Salukis, Iowa goes under the arm—Pitt!, NWU hosts Western Illinois, Bowling Green continues to terrorize the Big Ten — this week in Madison, the Brick Dick is hosted by Moo U., Mary-land plays at Syracuse, Rutgers gets Navy’s goat, Utah invades the Big House, the Other Spartans come to Minnesooda, Texas State (who?) beats Illinois, Indiana goes down to Missouri in more ways than one, and The U invades corn country in their best Michael Irvin camos.

That’s it for this week. Stay tuned for some more words of wisdom about the Minutemen during the week if I don’t kill myself hiking.

(Hey, and by the way, I’d like comments about the new look of the site. RD has informed me that it is hard on his old eyes. I don’t want it to be hard to read for all eight of my faithful readers although I don’t relish going through all the work it will take to change it again. That having been said, please tell me what you think and if changes are necessary, I’ll get around to them eventually.)

Looks like Miss TSC-07 might be on sabbatical since 2010. I have no idea how to respond in a meaningful way, so I’ll just say that, clearly, both of you must have your fingers on the team’s pulse, each in your own unique way!

At least I had half of it right. I thought the Rutgers offense was seriously over-rated and wasn’t disappointed. The blocked kick was actually a thing of beauty. It really was. Most blocked kicks are the result of a blown blocking assignment, bad snap, bad hold or a low kick. None of them applied. The 6’6″ Knight who blocked it lined up in the second row, had serious ups and timed it as perfectly as it could be timed. A fraction of a second earlier or later and he whiffs. The only thing to stop that block would have been to run a fake. It was just one of those plays.

As for the offense, I am of the opinion that it, along with our running game, is more a function of our OC who is playing role of John Butler. They are never going to get the running game going if they keep trying to run using the plays and formations they are using. It isn’t happening. As for the rest, good lord did they need to wait until half time to make even a small adjustment? Rutgers got no pressure at all when they went after Hack five on five. The line stone walled them. The blitzes killed us over and over. I didn’t see a max protect formation until the second half. I did not see many hot routes allowing Hack to get the ball off quickly either. Unbelievable.

Throw in a fired up Rutgers team that played the best game they have played since they played Louisville in 2006 and it is amazing State found a way to pull it out. Next up UMass. Hopefully they spend a lot of time mulling over the film because this game, much like last year’s Michigan game nearly got away from them. They should have blown them out but the coaches put them into position to lose. Now Rutgers has to play Navy and I think the Midshipmen are going to put up a ton of rushing yards on them and win.

We all know that come hell or high water, Franklin is going to push the run against UMass. And what exactly will that prove?

The pussycat so far has been useless and the trick plays haven’t worked because the line can’t hold the blocks long enough. Did you notice Hack had more success when he was in the shotgun than under center and that play that Belton scored on was a nice read-option; it froze everyone and created a hole that you could have drove a school bus through. And where the hell is Lynch??? Just sayin’.

It won’t prove anything if it goes as planned; however, if they can’t run against the Minutemen, what then? I know you wrote the above like it is a foregone conclusion that Franklin will push the run and succeed. Do I actually think it might not succeed? I’m from Missouri.

Yeah, that Belton scoring play was a good read and well executed. But why the hell do we have to wait for the final two minutes for plays that work?

Lynch? He’s still on the field, waiting for some blocking in front of him.

So is this first step in a rivalry? The BTN Game Day crew sounded like they had instructions to make everyone think it already was.

Everyone of this team’s known flaws was apparent in this game and yes they are living on the razor’s edge. However, the one thing I do like about these fellas is that they seem to know they have issues. Somehow, someway they’ve been able to overcome them against UCF and now Rutgers.

All things considered, the defense did seem to figure out the Scarlet Knights offense in the second half and I’ve got to believe Gary Nova (former Super-Nova) couldn’t deal with having Barnes and Zettel in his face on pretty much every play. I also think Mr. Offensive Genius, Ralph Friedgen’s play calling in the second half left a lot to be desired, but that’s the way it goes.

I read somewhere today that PS should hire a hypnotist so that every time Hack goes on the field he thinks there’s 3 minutes left and we’re down by 2 points. Seriously, though I can’t find anything to complain about with this kid. He seems to know the hand he’s been dealt with the O-line, stretches of dumb ass play calling and running backs that can’t seem to find a way out of the backfield (honestly I don’t think Belton and Zwinak would be offered a scholarship by Franklin today) yet still his level of competitiveness seems to inspire his guys to play way over their heads when the game is on the line.

So in an environment that was much more hostile than I anticipated, a rabid crowd (did you catch the “fuck Penn State” chants from the Rutgers student section), with an opponent playing like they were getting an adrenaline IV every time they came to the sideline in the first half and for whatever reason feeling that this was a game they absolutely, positively, without fail had to win to keep Jersey recruits in Jersey we won. Yes with all the issues, problems and warts this team has right now and probably will have for the next few games, we won.

Can this be sustained-who knows. Eventually they won’t be able to outrun the snarling dog and will get bit in the ass, but as of right now they’re 3-0 and should beat UMass, NW and Temple as a minimum to make it to the Koehler Toilet Bowl. But seriously if you look at the B1G, there is not that much out there (beyond OSU and MSU in our division), so who knows.

All I know is that when I went to bed after the game, I was really glad I wasn’t a Rutgers fan!

Oh and the site is okay-simple, not a lot of bull shit and it was easy to figure out where everything was. Nice recovery!

Probably could clean up the font under “Nittany Turkey” in your logo-it seems like your font or the bolding makes the letters bleed together (unless that’s the look you want). And yes, I was wearing my glasses.

The bottom line is that State’s offense really isn’t very good right now. According to the WWL its 109th in rushing offense and more importantly 100th in scoring. And the teams we played so far are NOT defensive superstars, so that’s not very encouraging.

And I can’t tell from watching the TV what the problems are. I’m not ready to blame their problems on play calling without looking at the full field tape that the coaches get.

From the lousy vantage point provided by the TV feed, it seems that the center and guards aren’t that quick on their feet, Hack is inconsistent, and our vaunted receivers are having trouble separating from the defensive backs.

To the extent that those issues are technique related, you can blame the coaches. But I think a lot of it is talent related. Because of the sanctions, BOB didn’t get many OL recruits or highly ranked running backs. And we are going to live with it until Franklin’s recruits are experienced enough to make a difference.

The new site look isn’t better or worse IMO. Just go with whatever is cheaper/easier to maintain

Obviously, I won’t be getting the game video anytime soon. I watched the game at a sports bar (f.u. DISH), so I could barely see what was happening, let alone figure out who was responsible..

However, the TV view isn’t the best way to analyze line play. An end zone view is best since you can pick up the spacing, stemming, and twists much easier.

I’m not sure that failure to pick up the blitz was State’s biggest problem, Rutgers tackle (91??) had a good game too. But, if it was, whichever lineman that calls out the blocking assignments (usually the center) is responsible. The only thing the OL coach can do is make adjustments after the offensive series is over.

In all fairness, it is hard to block seven rushers with five. Occasionally six. Of course Belton is barely more than half of a speed bump if called on to block, and he was. The blocking was light years better in the second half but still not great as they failed to incorporate a legit hot route into the offense.

Friends' Blogs

Whodat Turkey?

The Nittany Turkey is a retired techno-geek who thinks he knows something about Penn State football and everything else in the world. If there's a topic, we have an opinion on it, and you know what "they" say about opinions! Most of what is posted here involves a heavy dose of hip-shooting conjecture, but unlike some other blogs, we don't represent it as fact. Read More…